Casual Route - 5.10a popular

Simul-Climbed this in 2 hours. Super awesome dihedral, the crux is not bad, hard to tell if it's really 10a because of the altitude. Everything feels hard that high up. Finished to the summit via Kiener's and then back down to Broadway via N. Face and Chasm View raps. Fun day, almost got our rope stuck because of some pull cord snag.

Started hike in at 2AM. Had to cross some steep snowfields, kind of dicey without axe or cramp. Started on route 5AMish. Route itself was among the best ever. Each pitch required a variety of techniques. Got hit by thunderstorm near the top and I chose to pull on three fixed nuts to speed past the crux. Had the entire face to ourselves. Rap route is lame. Will walk off if I ever go back. We hid in a cave to wait out the storm but made it back to the car by 2AM.

Chasm View and rapped to Broadway. There were ~20 people waiting for this route the previous day, but there was only one other party there during our ascent. Classic route, every pitch is awesome climbing. I thought the 5.10 crux was not too bad, but the two squeeze chimneys (5.8 and 5.9) were pretty hard. Even the long 5.8 pitches felt hard with the altitude, exposure and pack. I highly recommend this route, but don't underestimate its seriousness, it was definitely more committing and difficult than I had imagined.

Classic for a reason (fantastic climbing/position) but a little too crowded for my tastes (5 parties on the route!?). The rappel route seems to be a popular option but I strongly prefer the Cables descent unless you're bailing. While rapping the face, we found it difficult to find the bolts and ended up rapping a different line. Then we never found the lower rap stations and ended up rapping the North Chimney. I'm sure it's easy if you know where they are but doing these raps while parties on D-7 drop rocks on you seems way more of a hassle than the trivial Cables descent. Not that it really matters but the grade seemed a bit on the soft side, easier than several of the 5.9s in the area.

amazing route